BOSTON  Eight-plus years before his feet were etched in cement at Fenway Park, Dave Roberts etched himself into Boston Red Sox lore and the hearts of Beantown with his daring steal of second base against the New York Yankees, still considered the play that sparked the Sox back to the pennant and their first World Series win in 86 anguished years.

Conversely, the Red Sox’ loyal, passionate fans and people of Boston made a lasting impression on Roberts, now a Padres coach.

“I’m gonna steal a quote from David Ortiz, but I’m not sure I'm getting it exactly right,” said Roberts, referring to his former teammate who’s still Boston’s designated hitter. “Talking about how resilient Boston was, he said something like, “Those people picked the wrong city to mess with.” And he was right. Bostonians are a very proud people.”

When Roberts said “those people,” you likely knew who he meant. Because of his strong association with Boston – and the way the city keeps loving him back – Roberts took it to heart when the two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in April.

There’s a largely unspoken, but very real, sense of trepidation about this particular interleague series between the Padres and Red Sox. Most of that’s due to the timing of it, the fact that the finale is Thursday, the Fourth of July.

In the aftermath of the Patriots Day bombing – less than a mile and a half away from Fenway Park – the selection of a sports event on a major Boston holiday for that violent act gave rise to suggestions that a Red Sox game on Independence Day would likewise make a natural target for disruption.

Security precautions are expected to be highly intensified for the ballpark on Thursday and the annual Fourth of July festival on the nearby banks of the Charles River, a spectacular and particularly important celebration in Boston.

For his part, Roberts had hoped for a much lower-key welcome-back to Fenway than greeted him with the Padres arrival in 2011, his first return as a non-player. Roberts was besieged with media requests hen, handling what essentially was a sizable press conference in front of the Padres dugout.

Instead, Roberts arrived Tuesday at the fabled ballpark to find that he’d been immortalized in the Walk of Fame just inside the Ipswich Street entry gate. Among the cemented handprints of such Red Sox favorites as Jim Rice, Wade Boggs, Jason Varitek, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr is a single set of bare footprints, the name “David Roberts” and number “31.”

“”Pretty surreal,” said Roberts, who did the original foot impression in plaster during spring training in Peoria, Ariz. “I’d never had anything molded except my teeth. For them to reach out and want a molding of my feet for this place, knowing how long it’s been here and that this will be imbedded in this ballpark forever, that’s pretty incredible.”

In a restaurant area of Fenway where various highlight of Red Sox history are commemorated, there’s actually a corner devoted entirely to Roberts, mostly focusing on the stolen base he made when Boston was on the verge of extinction from the ALCS.